Dumontis

Building Autonomy in Continual Improvement

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Demand-Driven Material Requirements Planning, or DDMRP in short, promises to be the first real innovation to MRP since the invention of MRP. Furthermore, in one of its white papers, the Demand Driven Institute states that “Lean Finds a Friend in DDMRP” (2011). DDMRP is positioned as integrating Lean, the Theory of Constraints (TOC) as well as Six Sigma whilst fundamentally innovating the traditional MRP (and DRP) planning approach. What I think of it? Some parts are OK, but most of it still has nothing to do with Lean. In a series of two posts of which this is the second (the first can be found here), I’ll try to explain my views and hope this may help you and your company in making the right decision when looking at your values, your thinking, your philosophy and your strategies.(more…)

Demand-Driven Material Requirements Planning, or DDMRP in short, promises to be the first real innovation to MRP since the invention of MRP. Furthermore, in one of its white papers, the Demand Driven Institute states that “Lean Finds a Friend in DDMRP” (2011). DDMRP is positioned as integrating Lean, the Theory of Constraints (TOC) as well as Six Sigma whilst fundamentally innovating the traditional MRP (and DRP) planning approach. What I think of it? Some parts are OK, but most of it still has nothing to do with Lean. In a series of two posts (the second one of this series you can find here), I’ll try to explain my views and hope this may help you and your company in making the right decision when looking at your values, your thinking, your philosophy and your strategies.(more…)

Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) is touted as the answer to Lean for hi-mix, lo-volume environments typically encountered in SMEs like job shops or machine builders. Personally, after having read the book and some papers about QRM, I got interested in QRM for the management of make-to-order products along make-to-stock fast movers, typically managed with the more traditional, anonymous or product-specific kanban (see also an earlier post on pull upstream and downstream op the order penetration point). So when Rajan Suri, Mr. QRM himself, was in the Netherlands last week, I took the opportunity and enrolled in a two-day workshop on QRM with him. Expectations were high, but although QRM does propose some interesting tools, overall it was somewhat disappointing. A post on what to expect and what not to expect from QRM.(more…)

Let me just cut straight to the point: MRP and APS in the end simply don’t work. These approaches are based on what I call “the paradigm of the makeable reality”. They start from a large number of doubtful assumptions about this reality, like demand, inventory, bills-of-material, lot sizes, lead times, reject rates and capacity. And when these assumptions do not come to pass, it leads to nervousness and instability in the system. It’s time for something else. It’s time for an approach that accepts that reality isn’t manufacturable.(more…)

The (customer order) decoupling point (CODP) or order penetration point is one of the most well-known logistical concepts. It indicates the inventory location in the value stream up to which the customer order penetrates. The CODP is one of the key design decisions in structuring the value stream and its management. For instance, the CODP separates the part of the value stream that is order- driven (downstream of the CODP), from the part that is forecast-driven (upstream of the CODP). But is that necessarily true? Doesn’t kanban, in fact, represent a good example of managing the upstream part of the value stream based upon consumption rather than forecast? And aren’t a lot of companies still clustering their customer orders downstream of the CODP or working with lot sizes, resulting in products manufactured too early, too late or just too much? This blog post nuances the existing control dogma in relation to the CODP.(more…)